Briefs: letters, amendments, and agreements

By Jeff Foust on 2011 February 8 at 6:48 am ET

In a letter to President Obama, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) asks the president to follow the guidance of last year’s NASA authorization act when requesting funding the space agency. “As we approach the rollout of your FY 2012 budget request, I look forward to a plan that is consistent with the NASA Authorization Act of 2010,” Reid wrote in the five-paragraph letter, dated February 4 and devoted entirely to space policy. “I also hope that the Administration and Congress will work together to remove any obstacles to ensure the full and timely implementation of the law.” He warned earlier in the letter, “Any digression from the hard fought compromise would likely result in another year of turmoil for an already battered community.”

The Senate will take up today an amendment to an FAA authorization bill that affects NASA, The Hill reports. The amendment would eliminate a provision in the bill that would create “an advisory committee to examine whether or not NASA should continue research and development on civilian aircraft.” The amendment was introduced by Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL) with bipartisan support.

Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and his French counterpart, Alain Juppe, will sign an agreement to share information on tracking satellites and debris in a meeting today at the Pentagon. The ceremony comes just days after the release of the National Security Space Strategy, which states that the Defense Department will work with other nations and companies “to maintain and improve space object databases, pursue common international data standards and data integrity measures, and provide services and disseminate orbital tracking information, including predictions of space object conjunction, to enhance spaceflight safety for all parties.”

Ohio’s congressional delegation, meanwhile, is stepping up efforts to secure a shuttle orbiter once the fleet is retired, reports the Dayton Daily News. The letter, by Rep. Mike Turner (R-OH) and Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) to NASA administrator Charles Bolden, states that the National Museum of the Air Force in Dayton is “a premier venue” for an orbiter. The letter, to be sent today, is also signed by nearly every member of the state’s delegation, with the exception of Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH), who may sign it today, and House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH). Boehner’s omission is apparently due to plans to minimize participation in such “delegation letters” while serving as speaker, but a spokesman tells the paper that Boehner supports the effort and “has made clear to NASA the benefits of locating an orbiter” at the Dayton museum.

It never ceases to amaze how members of Congress think an 11th-hour letter sent after the budget has gone to print in February will somehow change Executive Branch and White House decisions made months ago. The NASA Administrator sends his budget to the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) in early September. The OMB Director makes his final decisions on agency budgets in late October/early November. Those decisions get transmitted to the agencies around Thanksgiving. Final agency appeals to the POTUS are over by Xmas/New Year’s. How the heck is a post facto letter sent February 4th going to influence any of those decisions?

If you’re going to influence the Executive Branch/White House budget proposal, you have to start lobbying agency and White House political appointees and decisionmakers the summer two years before the fiscal year in question. It’s all over by the winter one year out. Anything later is just empty posturing.

Of course, given likely SLS/MPCV cuts in FY 2012 budget and the lack of NASA activity in Nevada, empty posturing to appease Nelson or another couple Senators is probably all Reid is after, anyway. If Nelson, Hutchison, et al. wanted their unfunded authorization act to become programmatic reality, they (or their staff) should have started working the White House months ago, rather than prodding the Senate Major Leader to write an egregiously late letter on their behalf.

The amendment would eliminate a provision in the bill that would create “an advisory committee to examine whether or not NASA should continue research and development on civilian aircraft

This is a clear opportunity for NASA to shed activities that are already performed more effectively in the private sector. Boeing and Airbus have nothing to learn from NASA about the development of commercial or military aircraft.

If by “interesting” you men sending billions more to Europe for an upper-stage to duplicate what the Atlas V, Delta IV, and Falcon 9 upper stages already do domestically, on top of the billions we’re already sending to Russia for Soyuz/Progress, then yes, I suppose it’s “interesting”. When it comes to “interesting”, one certainly can’t beat spending US taxpayer money on jobs overseas when there’s such a shortage of them at home. Or spending billions more out of NASA’s limited human space flight budget to develop an unflown first-stage when there are three such first stages with flight experience available in the domestic fleet. Or spending billions more out of NASA’s limited human space flight budget for a fourth domestic launch vehicle when what NASA’s human space flight programs most desperately need is a domestic source of crew capsules/space planes.

Since the President’s last budget request postponed starting work on an HLV for at least a couple of years (decision by 2015 IIRC), they could request that again.

Why? Well they can point to the underfunded SLS/MPCV programs as potentially wasteful spending (too early, not fully funded, wrong requirements, etc., etc.). With a tightening budget environment, the onus would be on Congress to pony up the money or cave to a more affordable plan.

The Administration might also be able to argue the ability of commercial crew to both save NASA money over the long-term, and strengthen our National Security by providing an American crew system for LEO (and the staging point for BEO), so I wouldn’t be surprised if they show shifting the SLS money over to commercial crew for a couple of years.

We’ll see what political calculations they come up with, and which fights they are willing to win or lose. Gonna be an interesting year…

If by “interesting” you men sending billions more to Europe for an upper-stage to duplicate what the Atlas V, Delta IV, and Falcon 9 upper stages already do domestically

The scale of the Libery proposal is impressive. An Ariane core is somewhat more ambitious than the Centaur and its derivatives, and whatever SpaceX uses. No doubt Astrium will put up the money that Boeing will not. I welcome our European partners. The battle is joined! I even like the graphics on the side of the rocket.

“The scale of the Libery proposal is impressive. An Ariane core is somewhat more ambitious than the Centaur and its derivatives, and whatever SpaceX uses. No doubt Astrium will put up the money that Boeing will not. I welcome our European partners. The battle is joined! I even like the graphics on the side of the rocket.”

Oh…amightywind.. you are really making my stomach upset today. First you say no commercial providers period. Now you say as long as the commercial provider design somewhat mimics the Ares 1 design you are ok with commercial. Please… oh, the pain……

“An Ariane core is somewhat more ambitious than the Centaur and its derivatives, and whatever SpaceX uses.”

Let’s compare Falcon 9 Heavy to the proposed Liberty:

Liberty – 44,000 lb to LEO, $180M/flight + $3B in NASA funding

Falcon 9 Heavy – 70,000 lb to LEO, $95M/flight (no NASA funding)

Hmmm, not such a good value. We could do the same comparison for Delta IV Heavy, and although the $/flight might seem less for Liberty, the development costs eliminate that advantage.

So what would it be used for?

There are already lots of trusted cargo launchers, so we don’t need another, especially one that is going to cost $Billions to duplicate a capability we already have. If ATK thinks they can compete in the commercial marketplace with SpaceX, then great, but I doubt that.

For crew, the Liberty is far more expensive than Falcon 9 and Atlas V for the basic capsules like Dragon and CST-100. So the only crew vehicle it could be used for is MPCV, which means that it’s not going to fly very often, which means it will never accumulate enough flight history in advance of carrying humans to prove that it is safe to carry humans. Remember, Delta IV Heavy, Atlas V and Falcon 9 will have a long history of flights before they carry humans, and where would Liberty get the business or funding in order to do that ahead of time?

F9H is a vapor rocket on the same reality plane as green energy and high speed rail. Liberty is a credible proposal directly using the finest “existing” space hardware on the planet. Let’s let the competition play out. Orbital also has credible proposals.

there is no use for this vehicle. All it is is ATK trying to figure out a way to put a “commercial” figleaf over the failure known as Ares 1. The integration cost alone of the Ariane stage and the Ares first stage…would be enormously expensive. I am surprised it is such a poor lifter.

Budgetary, as in its “impressive” per launch cost is about 30-50% more expensive than the single-stick Atlas V (and four times more expensive than the Falcon 9) it’s suppossed to compete with for commercial crew launches?

Or economic, as in it proposes to send an “impressive” amount of US taxpayer dollars overseas to support foreign jobs?

“An Ariane core is somewhat more ambitious than the Centaur and its derivatives”

The stated lift capacity is three tons less than a Delta IV Heavy. Wow, so “impressive”…

And that assumes that an air-start Vulcain can be cost-effectively developed in under three years, which the air-start SSME experience with the original four-segment Ares I design tells us ain’t likely to happen.

“No doubt Astrium will put up the money that Boeing will not.”

Astrium (or any other company) and its shareholders are going to provide multi-billions of dollars for the design, development, test, evaluation, and production of an air-start engine and new upper stage for NASA crew transport needs out of the goodness of their liberty-filled hearts?

Really?

“The battle is joined!”

Yes, the “battle is joined” with a design that duplicates (actually underperforms) the existing US fleet at much greater cost while requiring an unflown first stage, a disproven approach to the upper stage, likely VAB modifications, and US taxpayer dollars sent overseas to support foreign jobs.

I can hear the “enemy” trembling in their boots now.

Sigh…

I’m all for competition in the commercial launch market — the more, the better. But this has got to be one of the most boneheaded proposals — programmatically, technically, budgetarily, and politically — to date.

There are already lots of trusted cargo launchers, so we don’t need another, especially one that is going to cost $Billions to duplicate a capability we already have.

Here’s the thing …

* Redstone (Mercury) — liquid fuel first stage

* Titan II (Gemini) — liquid fuel first stage

* Saturn V (Apollo) — liquid fuel first stage

* Delta IV — liquid fuel first stage

* Atlas V — liquid fuel first stage

* Falcon 9 — liquid fuel first stage

ATK wants to use a solid fuel first stage because … They manufacture solid fuel rocket motors. A solid fuel first stage is a fundamental design flaw which should easily eliminate this concept from competition.

@Stephen – I like the concept you floated that windy is some bizzare form of performance art, one that provides endless amusement as it pens outrageous statements and then contradicts itself within a day, week, or month. The trick is to guess how long it will be before the jackassedness shows up… Most of the time there is NO wait, so you can laugh upon reading.

The “Liberty FrankenrocketTM” will never fly, but it will be amusing to see which of the Congresscritters suddenly line up in favor of this AMAZING CONCEPT from ATK that really isn’t commercial because unlike the other CCDev participants, ATK isn’t owned by “hobbyists”.

Why would NASA even consider paying US taxpayer money to the EU? This is absurd. Besides, the config uses a 4 segment SRB, which means not enough liftoff capability, etc, etc, it’s the same bad movie all over again … And one more time, what’s NASA have to do with the EU? What’s the hidden deal in here?

You’re mixing up stuff. NASA has nothing to do with EU in that particular case. It is ATK with Astrium, 2 commercial companies that are trying for a USG contract. If granted it would certainly benefit Astrium and therefore the EU. Commercial is commercial. If their offer was any better than the others it would make sense. It is not better, it cannot be better.

Surprised to hear folks against working with the EU. The Vision for Space Exploration (both this administrations and the last) clearly spelled out the advantages to working with friendly foreign partners. The ISS has so many foreign components paid for by the US tax payer it seems a little late to make that a point anyway.

With that said, this meld of EU and NASA-throw-outs has limited merit, fiscal conservancy not being one of them, and that probably spells its doom.

Liberty could be a very bad move by ATK. It gives the impression that they want to get into commercial space along with the rest of the industry and removes one of the key road blocks to keeping HLV;
The notion that “We’ve got to support the HLV contractors.”
Well with ATK going down the commercial road a bunch of Senators might be persuaded that the HLV is now really dead and they can withdraw their support.
But what will Liberty do?
Dragon flies on Falcon 9.
Boeing’s CST-100 will fly on Atlas V.
Dreamchaser and Prometheus will go with the cheapest ride.
Probably Falcon 9 or Atlas V if they get a good deal.
Can Liberty compete on price? Probably not.
That only leaves Orion and Orion is too heavy to fit on Liberty.
And you’ve got to wonder if ATK has fixed the thrust oscillation problem.
Or perhaps they think that doesn’t matter.
Perhaps they think NASA will insist on the Liberty being used.
All they have to do is build it and NASA will have to use it.
Their Senators will insist. Won’t they?

As common sense pointed out, the EU itself has nothing to do with this. But it should be noted that the European Space Agency is one of our partners in the ISS consortium.

I suspect the Congresscritters who have ATK operations in their states (click here for a map — note how many happen to coincide with Space Centers) will plot and scheme to force NASA to choose this dog, but using an SRB as the first stage kills this proposal before it ever gets beyond the artist’s conception.

“ATK would supply the human-rated first stage, which it developed under NASA’s Space Exploration Program. The five-segment solid rocket first stage is derived from the Space Shuttle’s four-segment solid rocket boosters (SRBs) which are built by ATK and have flown 107 successful missions since 1988 (encompassing 214 SRBs).”

What is “entertaining” to me on the “liberty” vehicle is the continued blatant effort by ATK to replace good engineering with bad politics. Whittington’s web site has the “slick video” and its interesting to watch…but dont do it on a full stomach. It is really “no platitude” left behind…

Yeah more wind from Windy. … considering the 5 segment hasn’t even flown … and it’s a completely different beast from the 4 segment.
NASA’s HSF is finished if SLS (business as usual) with or without Orion gets a guernsey.

And the ATK 5-segment SRM that Liberty will use has never launched, much less been rated for human use. Period.

Falcon 9 has two successful flights, and a large backlog of paid customer launches. Regardless of anything you say, SpaceX keeps making steady progress with real flight hardware, and their customer backlog ensures that they will be around for a long time.

Liberty, which looks like a giant bottle rocket, is a nice powerpoint presentation, but it’s a “me too” product in a sea of more qualified, less costly, and far more safe commercial launchers. No one is going to fund it.

“ATK would supply the human-rated first stage, which it developed under NASA’s Space Exploration Program.”

How can a “first stage” be “human-rated”? Vehicles are human-rated, not their components. Both jet engines and my wife’s Honda Civic are “human-rated”, but I don’t use the former in the latter.

Even if it could be human-rated independent of its application in a vehicle configuration, how can a five-segment motor be human-rated before it has flown? Since when did NASA drop flight testing from its human-rating requirements?

And had NASA finalized its human-rating requirements before Constellation imploded? How can anything be human-rated in the absence of human-rating requirements?

I think that we are now seeing the trajectory for the end of NASA HSF. The USA and ATK proposals will allow the pork-addicts in the Senate to extend Shuttle and resume work on Ares-I in place of investing in commercial launch. The cost of maintaining ‘commercial’ shuttle and ‘commercial’ development of Ares-I will quickly start draining funding from SLS.

By 2020, Liberty will still not have flown (problems with the upper stage – People who actually build the thing have said on NSF that it can’t be done), safety concerns will have finally grounded the shuttle and SLS will be five years off in its LEO form because of budget cuts. The BEO version would still be Ares-V-style vaporware. NASA would be dependent on Soyuz and will continue to be so for the foreseeable future. Soyuz will have grown steadily more and more expensive; Recent news reports out of Russia suggest that the Russian government has been refusing to pay even enough to cover production costs, so commercial customers (including NASA) will have to pick up the tab.

All this can very easily be avoided but I am afraid that the politicians will not be able to do so.

Ben Russell-Gough wrote @ February 9th, 2011 at 3:56 am
I think that we are now seeing the trajectory for the end of NASA HSF. The USA and ATK proposals will allow the pork-addicts in the Senate to extend Shuttle…

No matter what the pollies may try to do, the Shuttle is finished. It’ll maybe fly the last 2 missions this year and then that’s it. People continue to be let go and the manufacturing capability will be lost as well.

The only alternative for NASA HSF in any reasonable timeframe will be commercial and if they’re smart they’ll use CCDev Rd 2 to fund a max of 3 providers. Any more won’t get them the capability in the time-frame required. That will be SpaceX, Boeing, with the 3rd one being less certain.

NASA will, in the meantime, have to revise it’s astronaut coups into a scientific / trades corp (I’m reminded of the SpaceX chappie with the tin snips – LOL) in order to maintain and utilise the ISS. No more PR stunts like flying into the Cape in your personal jet fighters. What a lot of BS. No more mythical heros, just people doing the jobs they’re paid to do and want to do and about time.
JM2CW

It’s doubtful SpaceX will never fly a crewed Dragon, (although they’ll most likely get a cargo Dragon up and running to the ISS) given its current status, not for any lack of technical talent on hand or desire but because it makes little business sense to pump millions into a LEO HSF capability to come on line, with any luck, by the middle of the decade as the space station is on its down hill slide to scheduled splash by the end of the decade, more or less. It just doesnt make any business sense for a profit-motivated enterprise.

The more I think about Liberty the more I wonder what it’s really for.
They claim you can put any spacecraft on top of it. But can you?
The abort requirements for an all liquid rocket are relatively benign. Not so a solid.
Dragon or CST-100 can fly on any of Delta, Atlas or Falcon. But for Liberty both would need entirely new LAS.
Is this likely?
If CST-100 needs a back up launch vehicle there are two others available without any need to change the LAS.
Ditto for Dragon.
Perhaps Liberty hopes to attract the Dream Chaser or the Prometheus.
But why would either vehicle choose Liberty when a liquid rocket offers a less exacting LAS and the option of 3 LVs?
So what is Liberty for?
I’m beginning to think it has been put out there purely as a spoiler.
Naw.
That’s getting to paranoid.

Disputes are under way here. some of you are saying Liberty cannot lift Orion, when ATK says it can. Now who knows more, you or them? I dont blame them for wanting to hold people in jobs. If you worked there, you would be sweating too, wouldnt you. I see Liberty as yet another option for reaching space. If it can prove itselfl, great. With NASAs already 9 Bil. in it, they indeed may consider it a bargain to continue with. I still say those 5 segment boosters lighting up are something to see. I think many of you will be surprized at the outcome of all this. I believe Orion will b e continued, now what launcher takes it to space, remains to be seen. You all seem to want competition, so ATK is jumping in. Now you are all yelling about it. NASA has made no decisions yet. All is waiting to see what money comes forth first. If fair competition is to materialize, then ATK has a right to get in on the ground floor too. Falcon may yet be pushed out of the picture, or maybe not. Lets keep the competition going.

“I still say those 5 segment boosters lighting up are something to see.”

So are the fireworks, but that doesn’t mean you should launch an astronaut on one.

An SRM is just a component of a launcher – sometimes they make sense, sometimes they don’t. It depends on the application.

In this case the proposed French/American Liberty launcher is smaller than existing med-heavy launchers like Ariane 5 (where it gets it’s upper stage) and Delta IV Heavy, and costs more than the medium launchers like Atlas V, Delta IV and Falcon 9 that will be used for Dragon, CST-100 and Dream Chaser.

NASA management won’t choose it because it doesn’t do anything better than existing launchers, and the Republican House won’t choose it because it’s got a French upper stage.